Game: Gaucho and the Grassland
Genre: Adventure, Simulation
System: Steam (Windows)
Developers | Publishers: Epopeia Games
Controller Support: Partial
Price: US $16.99 | UK £14.23 | EU € 16,57
Release Date: July 16th, 2025
A review code was provided with thanks to JFGames PR.
There’s one sure way to refresh the world of life and farming sims, and that’s to change up the setting into something new. After Stardew Valley put a tired millennial’s hopeful spin on the original formula, came post-apocalyptic worlds like My Time at Portia, and exploring space in Little-Known Galaxy. Paleo Pines brought adorable dinosaurs, etc. But it can make you pause and realize that only a few of these games actually take the time to introduce us to countries and cultures we may not be familiar with. That makes Gaucho and the Grassland a game to root for in the long run — serious flaws and all.
Set in the pampas grasslands, a real region of South America full of temperate wetlands and flat, grassy seas — Gaucho and the Grassland takes the opportunity to invite players to explore a beautiful version of a land that’s endangered today, a place full of ranchers and remnants of European imperialism, where creatures like the capybara and the puma have lost territory. It doesn’t all work, and I had some serious issues ensuring my review would be up to speed, but nonetheless, it’s a game I’m rooting for in the long run. Let’s ride.
The Grasslands of the Gaucho
To simplify matters, a gaucho is a bit like the rugged fantasy ideal of the modern cowboy, right down to the occasionally nationalistic and macho backstories. They were travelling horsemen who would offer their services to ranchers. Nomadic and clever, because they had to be, gauchos lost the stigma of mercenaries and wanderers after several South American countries, particularly Argentina, won their independence from Spain, and became heroes of folklore.
In Gaucho and the Grassland, one doesn’t have to worry about that. While you can play as male or female, in a delightful updating of that machismo legend, both types of gaucho are going to be stout, crusty folk ready to get their hands dirty restoring not just the lands around them, but their own memories. There’s magic to be found in this secret stretch of pampas, and it’s up to you to help bring it all back to life!
Grab Your Rope
Emphasizing exploration and adventure over the farming elements, Gaucho and the Grassland will see you on horseback a lot, learning to treat your ride as not just the usual convenience but as a necessary part of your activities. That does include ranching, and learning how to handle cows is something you’ll have to learn right away. I stunk at it. Badly.
Part of my issue is that I would consider the game only partially optimized for controller play. I ended up using my Steam Deck’s touchpad for mouse-style movement more than I expected, even though most actions are pre-mapped to button inputs. Further, controlling my horse felt like tank-style controls, requiring a higher amount of skill than farm sims usually require.
I’ve also found others discussing issues with fishing difficulty (you do get used to it), and a game-locking bug that doesn’t seem to have a workaround: you can get stuck inside your horse, and reloading may or may not fix the issue. There was no unstuck button.
Early crafting and building quests — and one lovely point to make is that there is a LOT to do in this game, if you can get to it — can also be difficult due to vague wording in dialogues and quest records, which is a harsh balance to one of the game’s positives, a lack of capitalism. Fair trade is the name of the game here.
Lasso Some Uh Ohs
You may notice I’m reporting a few issues secondhand, where I always do what I can to report what I can firsthand. Part of my routine when preparing to review is to make sure that, along with the time I put in after I get access to a game, I put in a good amount of time in the day or two before I write. That’s to make sure I’m working from a build that’s as close to release as possible so that I can check on any issues I had, so I can be as optimistic as possible about indie games.
I could not do that for Gaucho and the Grassland, as yesterday I looked to find that my early access was gone. The entire game was gone from my deck, like a time-gated demo version, and I was unable to reinstall. While a demo version is still available, I have no idea which of the above issues have been addressed in the final hours of full release. That has never happened to me before, and I will be honest, it left a sour taste.
That’s especially disappointing, because as funky as I found the game on the Steam Deck, this is a game I very much want to succeed in the long run, just for the chance to have people explore a world and a community they may not know much about. Or, for others, to finally feel represented in a genre that’ll go to the Paleolithic era before it’ll go visit the Kenyan Maasai tribe.
Conclusion
Gaucho and the Grassland is a refreshing idea, adding adventure and cultural history to a game genre that can always use more diversity. But as it pulls up towards release, it’s still in a bit of a rough state, with game-locking bugs and some confusion left as to how to accomplish some of your many goals. The developers appear consistently active at working on the game, posting fairly frequent updates about what they’re working on. They’re not very responsive to Steam users, preferring Discord, so bear that in mind.
Overall, I desperately want to like this game, but with its current issues — and my inability to double-check several of them before writing this review — I have to stick to the lower end of our review scale. But do please keep an eye on this game and listen to fans as the weeks go on. I have hope that this game will grow into something special, but even as it meets its release date, I feel it still needs some time to get there.
Final Verdict: I’m Not Sure 
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